


distanza

by kedda



Series: non perdere la fiducia in me [1]
Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Muddling Through, Past Giovanni Garau/Eva Brighi, making shit up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-02 16:51:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16309010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kedda/pseuds/kedda
Summary: It's natural, his mother once said, for friends to drift away as you get older.  People change as their priorities change, and there's not much you can do about it.  But this was Marti.





	distanza

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer that i own nothing of the series/characters/plot/rome  
> disclaimer that i know zero italian save for whatever not-false-friends it has with spanish, so if i fuck up please let me know ;D

For all the drama at the end of last year, school would be what it always was: a placeholder before real life started.  So Gio would read, and learn, and maybe not so subtly insult his teachers in written assignments, and then if the exams next year went well he could go on to university and finally work towards something he wanted to do, ideally something that involved going somewhere else.  “There’s no point in applying to university,” his cousin, Ludovico, had said when he had mentioned this. “When you graduate no one gives a fuck if you got 30L in every exam, every year. They just ask two questions: can you lift, and do you have insurance?” Gio forgot what he had said in response, because soon after they’d gotten drunk on Pasqua wine and Gio won _RisiKo!_ for the third time in a row.

But Gio didn’t really care what Ludo thought about his employment chances, as he figured that he would be in a better position going forward if he _did_ have a degree than if he didn’t.  So he’d work for the scholarship, put his four years in, and if he was lucky, he’d apply for a grant to do research, and travel at some point in all that.  He had a five year plan, of sorts, though when he said that Elia said it made him sound like Stalin. (That conversation had devolved into a wrestling match that Elia promptly won.  “You should really learn how to fight,” Elia had said, standing over his body, “so you don’t lose to assholes.” It took Gio a minute to get what he meant, and then that started another, dirtier fight.  Elia still won, but was at least panting heavily by the end. “Your brother is a boxer, dickhead.” “What, you think he taught me anything? This is raw talent, _zi_ , talent.”)

And so despite everything with Eva being shit, with the constant reminder of what their life together had been like on his phone and on his Instagram, life went on.  He had more time on his hands with which he could play calcio, spend time with his brother, and make some money every so often sweeping hair up at zio Michele’s shop and cat sitting for the crazy vecchia Berenice.  If he found himself stopping in the middle of a hallway at school trying to place a scent in the air, and then realizing that it was Eva's shampoo, so what. They weren’t together anymore and he could move on. He would have to. “I made a real fool of myself,” he had admitted to Marti about his encounter with Eva at Federica’s party, and while he didn’t begrudge Marti his continued contact with Eva—he was happy, actually, that they could still remain friends—he couldn't help but be wistful for a time, even before the whole debacle with Laura, where they could just hang out together.  He’d started to take the long route home, for a route that was already fairly long. There was a lot behind a building that he’d found that was good for practicing manuals.

“You’re a real downer these days,” Elia had said as Gio shot his board out into the street yet again.  Luca thwacked Elia on the arm, who continued, “but you’re our downer. So if you don’t want to go near Eva for right now, we’ve got your back.”

    “Oh?  I’m _your_ downer?” He moved closer, arms out, threatening.  Elia gave him a droll look. “Oh what a sweet guy, _che bella l’amicizia—_ ,” he said, wrapping Elia and Luca into a bone crushing embrace after some grappling.

    “ _V_ _affanculo_ , _stronzo_ ,” Elia groaned, patting him on the back.

    “ _Grazie, zi_ ,” he’d replied.

And he was thankful, even though their care with him sometimes made him feel a little foolish.  Luca had talked about Silvia caressing his cheek for several days, which eventually made Gio give in to go to the radio party.  Eva seemed to be doing fine, and for all intents and purposes he should be doing fine, too.

Martino hadn’t been there that day, nor did he come the day after.  They’d meet up at school, grab some snacks at the vending machine on the fourth floor (it had the best selection), and chat between classes, but it wasn’t the same.  Recently they’d make plans and Marti would bow out, saying he had to take care of something. Given how close he and Marti were at the end of last year, Gio didn’t know what would be making him draw away in the way that he was.  How did you go from staying over to comfort a friend in distress to hardly knowing what was going on in their life? Last he had a real conversation with Marti he’d told Gio that things had calmed down with his mom and that Gio could go home, really.  That had been three months ago. He wasn’t sure how he had let time get away from him like this, but when he didn’t let himself get distracted by Marti’s excuses and good humor Gio knew that Marti was hiding something from him, from them, but he couldn’t pinpoint what.  It was troubling, too, because he would get caught up in the conversation and somehow Marti would have already slipped out, citing the radio project with Sana, or some other thing involving his mother.

The Frog had been giving Marti the cold shoulder because he wouldn’t respond to any of her messages, which confused Gio further because while Marti could be dense when it came to girls it was obvious that if there’s a girl you like, you do whatever you can to keep the conversation going.  And if you weren't interested —as Gio was beginning to suspect was the case here— you didn't waste her time pretending that you were. When Gio watched Marti jog up to Covitti yesterday and saw her gradually warm up as Martino did that ridiculous floppy hair thing he did when he was trying to get into someone’s good graces, Gio had thought maybe Marti would finally figure it out, whatever it was.

But then something like today would happen, where Marti would lie to his face as though the fact that he was lying now didn’t go and prove the fact that he lied before.  The guy — “Niccolò,” Marti confirmed afterwards so reluctantly that Gio almost wished he hadn’t asked— had rolled up, tossed Marti Gio’s earbuds, and mentioned finding them on Friday.  “On the bus,” he’d added, but someone would have to teach this poor guy to lie properly because he was clearly out of his depth. Of course, Gio was grateful for his transparency just so he could finally figure out what was going on for once.  And Marti had just been quiet, oddly despondent.  Whatever happened Friday clearly had nothing to do with his mother and had something to do with this Niccolò guy.

He’d shared a look with Elia while Niccolò waited for some kind of answer from Marti, and was grateful to see that he wasn’t the only one who was utterly baffled by this encounter.  This wasn’t some dude from class, or a random acquaintance. Who made Marti, their snarky shithead, go totally quiet just from walking into a room? When Niccolò had attempted to make Marti say _something_ — _“They’re yours, right?”_ — Gio eventually had to intervene and remind Marti how you were supposed to respond when someone returned something of yours.   _“They’re mine actually, but thanks, by the way.”_  And finally Marti had managed a short _thanks_ before Niccolò fled, his _“Ciao”_ ringing oddly loud in the open space of the gym.  Elia, always quick to attack (something that made him _particularly annoying_ when it came to competing against him in just about everything), had immediately asked Martino about Friday.  Gio just stared at the floor as Marti coughed out another bullshit answer.

Little things were adding up to change their dynamic and Gio felt them rising like a wall between them.  Absurdly, he felt the need to say _I miss you_ which was patently ridiculous given that they saw each other every day.  So Gio would bear it and let Marti come to him. He knew that Marti had always been a more reserved person when it came to the things that really troubled him, and he knew that it took patience to crack the smiling exterior.  On the inside —that was where all the things that Marti was ashamed of resided. These used to be the fact that his family never went on vacation, or that his grandparents didn’t speak standard Italian. More recently it had become about his mom’s depression and increasingly erratic behavior, and his dad abandoning them and finding a new family almost immediately after.

Gio had tried to communicate to Marti many times that what he kept locked in there didn’t reflect on who he was as a person. These were just facts of life, part of a shitty hand that he was dealt, or products of decisions that he had no control over and for which he bore no responsibility.  His dad left for reasons that had to do with Francesco Rametta, not Martino. Marti’s mom would sometimes freak out and would need help. That was just the way things with her would be, and how it was for a lot of people. It didn’t have to be this big thing of needing to apologize for her or pity her, or some such thing. But Marti would always respond, “You don’t have to live with her. She’s not your mother.”  And Gio couldn’t deny that. But Gio’s mom was her own brand of unstable, and frequently Gio felt like he was the parent of the teenager who was throwing a tantrum about things that didn’t even matter. And anyway, that was beside the point - he _wanted_ to be allowed in because Marti was important.  Gio wished that it were as simple as Marti recognizing that they all cared, and that they'd stick by him regardless of whatever he had going on.   He'd learned the hard way that that wasn't how it worked; that what he thought was good for Martino might not be what was good for Martino, that Martino knew his own situation best.  But for a long time Gio didn't have to work too hard for it because Marti had already come to trust him with the difficult things that he didn't lay on anybody else.  Martino’s family was all sorts of distant and estranged, and over the years he had come to adopt parts of Gio’s family as they adopted him in return.  And Gio was glad for that.

But it was also why he couldn’t understand the sudden distance that had sprung up between them.  He didn't expect it to hurt as much as it did.

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: i really like ludovico tersigni's portrayal of giovanni and it's been making me want to inside gio's head for a while now. we've been getting some solid boy squad interactions also, so that has me psyched.  
> a/n.2: 30L refers to the highest score on exams at Bocconi University (Milan) according to Wikipedia - i'm not sure how accurately this could be applied outside the school. Ludo's graduated but unemployed and so is feeling a little cynical.
> 
> i may need to come back and tweak this as it's part of a series i'm working on, but the changes wouldn't be drastic.


End file.
